I don't like the fact that some good-looking objects like the collector edition car would be dwarfed by the stats (general statistics) of an uglier car.

What i'd like to do is to fix some stats such as comfort, speed, environment, energy, and such stats in objects.

I am also looking to change the moodlets. One thing that bothers me is ambrosia (food of the god). If it's god food, it should give like +1000 moodlet instead of 75.

OK, so to keep this organized, I'll just lay down some questions and by answering them, u'd help me alot:

1) What tools do i need to mod? I heard you use an unpacker to get the .xml and repack it? what kind of unpacker/packer? link?

2) Where do you put the packed files after you've packed the .xml to .package?

3) What file am i working with? in other words, what file contains all the stats for the objects and the moodlet values? Let's call this the master file.

4) How do i change stats for downloaded items from The Sims 3 Store? Are stats for those items incoporated in the master file after it's installed or do i have to fix the files in the "downloads" folder to change the stats?

Thanks

1) I find that S3PIDemoFE tool for extracting and packing quite handy http://www.simlogical.com/Sims3Tool....php?board=19.0

2) Into your Sims3Root\Mods\Packages or wherever you point into your resource.cfg. Read about this topic here: http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?...g_Package_Files

3) The files you're looking for are stored in the GameplayData.package in Sims3Root\Game\Bin\Gameplay (the only package in that folder)

4) Honestly idk. I have no item from that store so I can't say, but I think those items were put somewhere into your My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3. Look for anything that has the item name and a .package behind it
Like I said, not sure about it.

I don't think anybody's figured out how to mod store items yet. Which is not to say it's impossible or anything, just that it hasn't been a high priority. So if you can do it you'll be the pioneer

Holy smokes!

I downloaded the manual install of the S3PI (no install, just click on the .exe and go) and i opened the GameplayData.package and i get a bunch of hexidecimals or something. All of them are chunks of letters and words!!! What's going on? Is this supposed to happen? I'm so confused as to how to use this tool, can anyone help me? How do i get the thing to be readable and hence moddable?

I've never mod the sims series...ever. Maybe i'm missing things learned in Sims 2 modding.

But, however, I have modded Spore, which uses .package files too, but the tools they use are different. In Spore, you only save the things you've changed into a .package file, and those things you've changed will override the default. Does this work the same for Sims 3?

Mostly, yes.

Some things you might want to mod in Sims 3 are in plain text in .xml files. For how to work with that stuff, read this: http://simlogical.com/slforum/index.php?topic=2762.0

Other things are harder... basically most of the core gameplay functionality is in compiled form in a small number of very large .dlls.

There are several other specialized tools for specific aspects of Sims 3 modding, like skins and patterns. And other areas where tools are under development.

When you start the S3PI tool there are two buttons you might want to check before you open the GameplayData.package. First check the "sort" button and then the "Display resource names" one.
When you open the package now you'll see the names of most of them and you can sort them by name for example.

Now you're on your own. Pick a file you like and export it. For example: Look for "Computer+Overclock_0x6c07a74500b02e61" and extract that one. It's a xml where you can edit the chances of succeeding when your sim tries to overclock a computer.
After you've made your changes choose "File->New" in the S3PI tool and then "File->Import". Import your new changed xml and save it to a new .package into your Mods/packages folder.
That's how it basically works. I can't tell you which file you need to open (since there are alot of them), so you'll have to figure it out by yourself.

Hope this'll help you a bit

lol, i didn't know that sims can overclock their computers

Ok, on the serious note, that helped me ALOT! I've downloaded the all beds give same energy gain mod and poked around to see how it works. Well, it's very difficult to understand because they don't give you a straightforward "energy 8," "environment 4," "stress relief 2," etc. They give you like


When i do fix these values, the beds would give me the same descriptions as they were before i change them. Like, when i fix the cheapest bed to have the same values as the most valuable bed, the descriptions in-game are still the same.

How do i fix the in-game description?

Okay... lets see. I think what you're looking for is the "<EnergyMultiplier value="1.36">". I (again) don't know how the game works internally, but I'd bet this is what you're looking for. If you'd normally get 1 energypoint back per minute you're asleep it could get multiplied by this very number. Not sure about it though...

... but I don't think you can mod those descriptions like "energy 8," "environment 4," "stress relief 2,". Normaly all in-game text is stored in a STBL, but i can't even find an entry for "energy", so it's probably coded somewhere else, probably hardcoded.

You can check out for yourself - http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=349481

Ceon describe here how you can change ingame text. But like I said, haven't found an entry for energy, so you're probably forced to life with this until someone find out how to change that.
Have you already checked if there is a difference ingame? I mean if your sim sleeps in the cheapest bed exactly the same way like he would in this luxury one (I mean if he regains energy quicker)? Try to set the energy regain value to 2 or something (he should regain energy real fast that way - at least the comment in the xml sais so...).

The values work. I get 3 arrows for the worst bed (which i modded to have the same values as the best bed) and the best bed.

The only thing i don't like are those descriptions.

Oh, and how do you search for things in S3PE. It's really hard to find things i need with that tool